Keyword Research for Beginners

What is keyword research?

Keyword Research is finding out what words or phrases you want to rank in search engines for. When you are new content for your website like product descriptions, articles or landing pages it is good to focus on Keywords to help you get more relevant traffic.

Once you have worked out what these words or phrases are you can focus on adding them to your SEO campaign.

How to start doing keyword research?

Put Yourself in Your Users Shoes

What does your website offer that will help someone. Search engines like Google and Bing want to give the user the best experience possible. This means making sure that when the user searches for something they get the most relevant results straight away. Try to ask yourself what your website offers

e.g. If you sell tractor parts, you want people searching for the keyword “tractor” or the phrase “tractor parts” to be seeing your website at the top of a Search Engine. So“tractor” and “tractor parts” are some keywords you should be looking at.

Use Keyword Tools

There are a few free tools that you can use that will help you access which keywords are worth focusing on.

Google Adword’s Keyword Planner

You can use Google’s Keyword planner tool to research the approximate monthly searches on Google for any given term. This helps you prioritise certain keywords or phrases depending on the volume of searches it is receiving. Here’s how to use it:

Sign Up for Adwords

If you haven’t got an Adwords account, then you will have to go and sign up for one. This includes having to put some payment details in, but don’t worry it is a free tool.

Click on “Tools” in the navigation bar and select “Keyword Planner”

Choose which tool you want to use:

“Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category” generates suggestions based on keywords that you enter.

“Get search volume data and trends” will give you search volume for keywords or phrases you enter.

With both of these tools you can filter the search volume by country,. You can even get as specific as a region or city.

For the time being you won’t need to use “Multiply keyword lists to get new keywords” or the budget planning tools. These are meant for Adword campaigns.

“Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category”

Google will generate lots of ideas related to the keyword or phrase that you have entered. It then will show you the monthly search volume.

“Get search volume data and trends” will give you search volume for keywords or phrases you enter. Again you get

Keyword Tool Dominator

You can use this free tool to find long-tail keywords and get a few more suggestions Google’s Key Planner may have left out

Top Tips

Don’t be too broad

If you are selling tractor parts then the keyword “parts” is far too broad to target. You want to target the phrase “tractor parts” as this keyword phrase will rank in a search engine much more easily.

Don’t over do it

Don’t spend hours getting hundreds of keywords to target. This will defeat the purpose. You want to use keywords as naturally as possible. Always make sure your website content is put together for your customers first and search engines second.

Be realistic

If you are starting a shoe website don’t think you are going to get close to the No.1 spot for say “Nike”. If you are looking to sell a popular well known product, chances are there will be 100s of other people trying to rank for that as well. Try to look for Long Tail Keywords that will be much easier to rank for.

Two Schmucks is a website designed to help businesses big or small. You can find guides, tips and strategies for all stages of your business. From planning concept through to exit strategies, you can find it here.